FRTNr,TT.LID/E — THE FINCHES. 551 



were in j^reat mun'tors in nil the pine harnMis of that State, in light and 

 sandy suil, and in >.'ouds but thinly overgrown I)y tall pines. They never 

 alight on trees, hut sjiend their time ou the ground, running with great ra- 

 pidity through the grass, in the maimer of a mouse. 



In New Jersey they were found in ])loughed fields, where th"y are pre- 

 sumed to ha\e been ovt!rluoke<l and mistaken for the VeUow-winged S[)ar- 

 row. Jklr. Auddjon. supposed that they were not found farther eastward 

 than that State. 



Specimens in the Smithsonian collection have been procured indeorgia 

 in December ; in Maryland in July ; at i'ort Jtiley, Kansas, Southern Illi- 

 nois, and in Xebrf '; i, in June. 



In Massachusc ' ts they are regular summer visitants, though as yet they 

 have been met wiMi in only a few instances and in a somewhat restricted 

 locality. They 're now met with nearly every year, and several nests have 

 been taken. Mr. Maynard obtained two specimens, May 10, in a wet 

 meadow in Newton. Their song-note he describes as like the syllables see- 

 wid; the first syllable prolonged, the latter given (piickly. This bird was 

 first obtained in Berlin, in that State, by ^Fr. E. S. Wheeler, who discovered 

 its nest and eggs. It was mistaken for Bachman's Finch, and was at first 

 so placed on the record, though the error was immediately corrected. Since 

 then, in that town, and in one or two others in its neighborhood, other nests 

 have been met with. Mr. William Brewster obtained several specimens in 

 Lexington, May 14, 1872. It is quite probable that it has been confounded 

 with C. 2>(i-'^scrinits, and it is now supi)o.sed to be more common in the eastern 

 part of the State than that bird. 



One specimen of this Bunting was taken near Washington, during the 

 summer .season, from which circumstance Dr. Cones gives it as an exceed- 

 ingly rare summer resident of the District of Coliunbia. 



In 1.S71, INIr. Bidgway ascertained that, so far from being rare, Henslow's 

 Bunting is very abundant on the prairies of Southern Illinois, as well as the 

 Yellow-winged species, but far exceeding the latter in numbers. Though 

 entirely similar to that bird in habits and manners, it may be veadily distin- 

 guished by its note, which is said to bean abrupt 2»7-/?(/, much more like the 

 common summer-call of the Shore Lark than the lisped gmsshoiiper-liko 

 chirp of the 0. pamrinvs, and to be uttered as the bird perches on the sum- 

 mit of a tall weed, the tail being depressed, and the head thrown back at 

 each utterance. A number of unidentified eggs were sent to me several 

 years since, by Mr. Kennicott, from near Chicago. They resembletl some- 

 what the eggs of C. jmsticrinus, but were not the eggs of that species. I 

 have now no doubt they belonged to this bird. 



The nest is built in the ground, in a depression, or apparently an excava- 

 tion scratched out by the bird itself, and is a well-made structure of coarse, 

 dry, and soft reeds and gras.ses, well lined with finer materials of the same 

 descri])tion. The eggs, five or six in number, somewhat resemble those of 



